“All assets continue attacking target,” Hobak growled into his transceiver, completely ignoring her.
The sound of explosions, jet wash and gunfire faded away for just a moment as the Brotherhood’s attackers shifted their strategy. Seconds later, the high-pitched wail of rail guns shattered the momentary lull as weapons – confiscated from enemy warships and now mounted on the compound’s outer walls – opened fire on the intruder. Kaufield walked to within fifty yards of the main gate and then paused there for a moment as a cloud of orange and golden sparks exploded off of his protective shield. Turning unexpectedly he headed east, walking parallel to the wall at a leisurely pace. Clouds of dirt swirling in the wind almost obscured him entirely as high speed projectiles tore into the ground around him, churning up large amounts of earth. Again, it was blatantly obvious that this latest attack was completely futile. And yet…
Valiana leaned forward and adjusted one of her own monitors. The image was focused on the area around Kaufield, specifically the clods of dirt being torn out of the ground by rail gun fire. Like Hobak, she had initially assumed that the projectiles slamming into the Earth were shots that simply missed their target. It was easy to reach that conclusion since clouds of shimmering sparks appeared on the surface of the President’s image each time the shooters atop the main gates launched a new barrage of fire. The effect was very similar to the sniper fire so easily dispersed after his initial landing. Except that this time it appeared the projectiles weren’t disintegrating against the shield. Using her fingers on the touchscreen, she expanded the image, zooming in on the President to prove her conclusion that the shots were actually passing through his body and finally impacting against the earth.
“Cease fire!” she snapped suddenly, turning toward Hobak with a furious expression. “I mean it Hobak! Order our military assets to cease fire immediately!”
“Valiana, I really don’t have time for…” He glanced upward briefly, long enough to catch her dark gaze.
“For what?” she demanded. “How much ammunition do you plan to expend against a ghost… against a simple hologram?”
He stared at her blankly for a moment before his eyes shifted back to the monitor images. “A hologram?” He exhaled loudly and studied the display more carefully. “It’s not possible.”
“It is,” insisted Valiana. “The rail gun projectiles are tracers… they leave visible contrails that are clearly passing through the President, not exploding against some sort of impenetrable shield as he would have us believe. The sparks you see are a special effect for our benefit… nothing more.”
“It can’t be,” said Hobak reluctantly. “Our sniper fire hit him, not the shuttle’s hull…”
“I’m not saying that he wasn’t initially there, initially our target,” she admitted ruefully. “But what you are shooting at now is in fact a hologram of some sort. It is a diversion, a cheat to keep us busy while something else happens that we are unaware of.” She imagined the gears in his mind clicking, and for once the stars in their shared universe aligned. They were at last in agreement on SOMETHING.
“That’s why he stopped at the front gate and then began walking around the wall,” her counterpart concluded. “The image of him is just an illusion being used to buy time. But buy time for what?” He watched her nod thoughtfully in response and then touched the ear unit of his transceiver headset. “All assets cease fire immediately,” he ordered. “Put the entire installation on full alert and double the guard at all key locations. Prepare for possible intruders.”
The two of them sat there for a moment, at first unwilling to believe what they had just bore witness to. “The only thing that makes sense is for the President, or someone else, to already be inside the walls of our compound,” she reasoned out loud. For once Hobak contented himself to sit quietly and listen to her. “Why else would they work so hard to keep us shooting at a decoy image?”
“If there was someone inside this facility, we would know,” offered Hobak in response. “He would set off key alarms or run into our guards. He would…”
“I should point out that he would not do those things if he possessed an invisibility stealth screen like his shuttle,” announced a third voice unexpectedly from behind them. Both Hobak and Valiana whirled as soon as they heard the pronouncement, shocked to see their worst fears realized. In some impossible fashion President Dennis Kaufield had not only breached their supposedly impenetrable defenses, but also managed to find his way all the way to the Command and Control center on the very bottom level of the Brotherhood headquarters. Immediately Hobak pulled a sidearm from his belt and opened fire on the President. Bullets impacted against his body and exploded in the familiar pattern of golden sparks – this time for real. “Not a good idea,” noted Kaufield with a wry smile. “Ricochets can be as deadly as direct hits. If the bullets had deflected, instead of disintegrating, you would both be dead right now.”
“What do you want?” thundered Hobak furiously, glaring at the unwanted intruder warily. “This planet is a devastated, radioactive wasteland, devoid of almost all of its former resources. What could you possibly want from us that you do not already have?” He cast a quick look in Valiana’s direction to let her know that he was buying time for her to do something… to somehow turn the tables on Kaufield.
Do what? she wondered thoughtfully. He appears to be fully capable of nullifying our entire military.
“We want our planet back, without you in charge,” stated the President bluntly. “Many of the ‘normals’, as you call them, continually rotate in from our new home in the Proteus galaxy because this is our true home. Whether they do it out of loyalty to a world that gave birth to humanity as we know it, or whether they do it out of nostalgia for their religious homelands… it makes no difference to me. I came here to depose your ruling Triumvirate from power and retake possession of this planet. Those who choose to remain here, even temporarily, will receive additional food and medication under our care, along with a much more benign government. It’s going to happen as of right now, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”
“With all that you have, I find it difficult to believe that you want this planet back,” noted Valiana, flipping her long dark hair over a shoulder to keep it out of her eyes. “There is nothing here but devastated land and water saturated with high levels of radioactivity. If you do force us out of power…” She ignored the look on Hobak’s face as he glared at her heatedly. “…then it would make more sense to evacuate everyone permanently to your new home. There they wouldn’t be susceptible to the hostile environment here.”
“Somehow we will heal it,” promised Kaufield steadfastly, eyes flashing with confidence. “Our first attempt to do so was stymied, but we are looking into the problem and plan to try again. One way or another, we will undo the disaster you have wrought and restore this planet to its former glory.”
Tossing aside his pistol, Hobak leaped out of his chair and charged Kaufield. His huge, well-muscled arms reached for the President’s throat and he fully intended to use his genetically enhanced strength to choke the life out of him. The Brotherhood leader was able to wrap his hands around the man’s throat, but astonishingly achieved nothing by squeezing his fingers together. It felt as though he was attempting to crush solid steel, as though no amount of energy exerted by his mortal frame would be enough to accomplish his task. Repeatedly he squeezed with all of his strength and repeatedly the President simply stood there watching him. Somehow all of the kinetic energy of his attack was absorbed and instantly disbursed.
President Kaufield reached up and physically removed Hobak’s hands from around his throat using his own heightened strength. Then he shoved the man hard in the chest and sent him flying into his chair where he landed and continued backward. Crashing into the tactical console, he fell out of the chair and landed on his hands and knees, slightly winded after his enormous effort to strangle his adversary. “You cannot injure me,” he told them.
“The
bombs and missiles and rail guns?” Valiana studied him curiously.
“They wouldn’t have worked either,” said the President with a small smile.
“How did you get in here?” she wondered inquisitively.
“The hologram you were shooting at began after the first missile hit,” Kaufield told her in response. “The shuttle I arrived on was hovering over your compound with its stealth screen in place, invisible to visual and electronic sensors while it mapped the surface buildings. As soon as the explosion died away and while I was still hidden within all of the smoke and flame, I created a Person-to-Point transit portal and used it to slip behind the wall of your compound. Since most of the people guarding the surface are stationed along this facility’s outer walls, all I had to do was activate my own stealth screen to remain hidden from your people.”
“But there are security codes… and the bottom levels of this facility are a carefully guarded secret…”
“Valiana,” said President Kaufield very deliberately, using her name in an attempt to capture at least a base level of respect, “I have at my disposal technology that allows me to read your security codes right out of the hardware they are programmed into. When I got onto your elevator, I simply used my wireless tech to hack into your system and retrieve the codes I needed.” He watched her reaction carefully, pausing to let the meaning of his words sink in. “As for how I knew about this place, do you remember a man named Patrick Warren?”
She remembered the name instantly and nodded. “He was a Durgon clone… the spy we placed on the moon base to infiltrate your Pathfinder Project.”
“Yes,” acknowledged Kaufield with a curt nod. “Patrick shared with us everything he knew about the Brotherhood, and his knowledge helped us immensely in planning the shortest, swiftest way to remove you from power. We used probes passing by the planet to monitor what was going on here, but they could only tell us so much. Patrick was the one person we knew who had actually been here. Since his original mission was to be such a deep cover operative, you naturally brought him to your inner circle so you could train him more effectively. In the end, we turned him into a friend and he shared what he knew with us.”
“How long were you listening?” she wondered. “How long have you been in this room?”
“Long enough…” replied the President coolly. “… long enough to know that Hobak remains a true believer. You, on the other hand, appear to have come to grips with your sins.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Or you are, at minimum, starting down that path. I can read people pretty well, and I can hear it in your voice.”
Hobak listened to their words and considered the betrayal of Patrick Warren – another cursed Durgon clone! It was all too much for Hobak to bear after his failed attacks on President Kaufield. Angrily he leaped to his feet and turned to face the tactical console. He opened a safety cover on a small control and pressed the red button beneath. Then he swiftly keyed in an activation sequence and triumphantly turned back to Kaufield and Valiana. “You have gained nothing by coming here,” snapped the Triumvirate clone almost hysterically. “I hope your cursed technology can save you from a nuclear blast, because that’s what you will endure in less than two minutes. We may die today, but our brothers and sisters will survive… elsewhere!”
Looking upon him with shame, Valiana shook her head slowly back and forth. “More nukes… more devastation… more radiation?” she asked him softly. “You’re beaten, Hobak. We’re beaten!”
“No!” he hissed defiantly. “We will never be beaten. The President will back down to save lives.” He turned away from her and glared at Kaufield spitefully. “Won’t you, Mr. President?”
“I’ve already saved everyone except you,” replied Kaufield somewhat sympathetically. His tone of voice enraged Hobak further, but not so much as to completely overwhelm his curiosity. “Only you can choose to save yourself. And I suspect your time to do so is running out.” He was watching Valiana out of the corner of his eye, and the look on her face could have melted steel if applied properly.
“What do you mean?” Hobak eyed his opponent warily. “The countdown has begun.”
“Nothing will detonate,” promised Kaufield confidently. “When I hacked into your system, an artificially intelligent piece of software was installed into your main computer. We’ve used it before – it’s an AI invented by a close friend of mine named Thomas.” He smiled grimly at Hobak’s reaction, continually surprised at the intensity of the man’s cruel and murderous nature despite already being familiar with the Brotherhood’s reputation. “That’s why the delay was needed; why we used the hologram to stall for time. The AI infiltrates an enemy computer system quite efficiently, studying communications traffic patterns, analyzing software and hardware functions, and then taking control of everything. You no longer have access to any of your military resources, here or globally. All of the remaining assets in play – especially the nuclear ones – are now under my control.” He winked at Hobak mischievously and then pointed toward the LCD countdown ticking off seconds on the tactical console.
It snapped back to zero, instantly aborted.
“Nothing you do will make a difference. Our brothers and sisters will never yield to you,” vowed Hobak imperiously. “We have over 500 distinct clone lines now, not the mere three that we started out with. Our clone brothers and sisters are experts, extremely adept at disguising themselves and hiding amongst the normals. We will sow dissent wherever we can, disrupt your plans to retake this planet, and do everything in our power to insure that others pay the price for your attempted comeback. Tell me Mister President, is all that worth fighting for? Is this irradiated, worthless planet worth all that to you?”
Kaufield studied Hobak with both sympathy and scorn. “There are two members of the Triumvirate still alive. If I turn one of you to my side, then all of that will be avoided,” he pointed out.
“I will never yield to you,” Hobak told him. “I swear to resist you until death takes me…” He was turning toward Valiana, seeking her support with his plans to refuse cooperation.
“Then let death take you!” she screamed furiously. She raised her own partially concealed pistol from within the folds of her dark clothing and shot him cleanly between the eyes.
*
President Kaufield seated himself slowly in the chair next to Valiana, watching her dark, brooding face carefully. “You didn’t have to kill him,” he pointed out to her.
“Yes I did.” She reached up and set her pistol on the tactical console, where a thin line of residual gray smoke curled out of its barrel. “He was a monster and it is truly a blessing that this planet is finally rid of him.” She raised a hand to move locks of hair out of her eyes, inadvertently revealing that her fingers were trembling.
“It’s all right,” Kaufield told her reassuringly. “After the incident in Havana, you must have known that your turn was coming. I didn’t know the full story until the AI searched through your computer databases.” He studied her tear-streaked eyes and frustrated expression with compassion. “From the start, all of this simply went wrong. Once a lawless revolution gets out of control, it quickly becomes too large to stop without a tremendous amount of effort.” He smiled knowingly. “Durgon was a friend of yours, I take it?”
“A very close friend,” she emphasized. “We both had sympathies toward the normals and we both tried hard to help them where and when we could. But Hobak has allies everywhere and they are difficult to control.” She looked up at him with a sudden, grim smile. “You remember how difficult it was to govern your country – consider how tough it is to try and maintain global control, with all modern advances only partially available.” She shook her head angrily. “There wasn’t enough left after the war to make a decent effort. All we ended up doing was trying to micro-manage the people who remained behind. It was a vicious circle. They resented it… hated having to toil for our food as well as theirs. The fifth columns form in cycles… eventually the normals rebel and Hobak’s
agents destroy them. Then things would be okay for a while, only to steadily grow worse until the sequence repeats.”
“Why was Durgon so commited to helping normal humans?”
She studied him thoughtfully. “Because of you,” she said finally, causing Kaufield to raise an eyebrow in surprise. “That message you sent, along with the hallucinogenic pathogen. He was the one who initially discovered it and the infection struck him the hardest, dug deep into his darkest emotions and amplified the guilt he felt over what we had done. It took our scientists a lot of time to learn how to treat it. He was haunted by dark dreams of hell and his loss of a soul. Deep down he also knew you were coming back some day and he wanted to be ready to help. Somewhere…” she paused, trailing off from a sudden crying fit as she remembered and mourned his loss. “… Somewhere along the line I decided to join him, and that was when he deliberately began telegraphing his intentions and false loyalties to Hobak. He allowed Hobak to know that he was a sympathizer because in doing so he threw suspicion away from me.”
“And then he was killed.”
Nodding and wiping tears from her eyes, Valiana temporarily recovered her composure. “I have never personally killed anyone before, but the blood of billions is all over my hands. No matter how hard I try, no matter what I do with the rest of my life, nothing can ever change that.” Taking several deep breaths, she glanced at him with new respect. “How do you know so much if you only recently took control of our computer systems?” she wondered. “Much of the data, especially control of our nuclear missiles, is carefully encrypted and stored in a carefully guarded room with only one access point. It should be impregnable.”
The Pathfinder Trilogy Page 94
